XPost: alt.home.repair   
   From: NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com   
      
   In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 5 Mar 2022 21:51:10 -0800, The Real Bev   
    wrote:   
      
   >On 03/05/2022 02:20 PM, micky wrote:   
   >> In alt.home.repair, on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 19:08:56 -0500, Michael Trew   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>>On 3/4/2022 1:57, The Real Bev wrote:   
   >>>> On 03/03/2022 09:51 PM, Michael Trew wrote:   
   >>>>> On 3/3/2022 17:38, The Real Bev wrote:   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Only once -- the very first time I drove down a mountain road -- did my   
   >>>>>> brakes get too hot to stop as quickly as I wanted. Lesson learned.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> That's a pretty rare occurrence these days with disc brakes; many cars   
   >>>>> now have rear disc brakes also. When I first drove a car (recently)   
   >>>>> with 4 wheel manual drum brakes, I quickly learned why people   
   >>>>> (especially older drives) teach you to pulse the brakes on steep hills.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> 1950 Olds 88. Did they even have disks then? I really should have known   
   >>>> better, but I'd never driven a mountain road before. I was lucky.   
   >>>   
   >>>I don't think disc brakes were even an option until the late 60's, but   
   >>>perhaps someone else could be more certain.   
   >>>   
   >>>Out of curiosity, did your Olds have power or manual brakes?  I owned a   
   >>   
   >> I had a '50 Olds also.  I don't think they came with power brakes.  But   
   >> it did stop okay.   They did have the possibility of Back-up lights.  I   
   >> found some at a junk yard and installed them.  And they did have the   
   >> possibility of an automatic headlight dimmer, based on the lights from   
   >> the on-coming car.  I only read about that.   
   >   
   >Mine certainly had no power brakes.  Drums all the way around.  No power   
   >steering either.  8-cylinder engine which I once got up to 100 mph on   
   >the long easy downhill pointing at Huntington (I think) Beach.  It felt   
      
   I'm pretty sure I've told this before, but what the heck.   I got mine   
   up to 110 one time, and it was flat.  No help from downhill.  It was   
   half-way across Michigan between Detroit and Gary Indiana.   
      
   >squirrelly, as I recall, and I backed off immediately.  (100 mph in a   
      
   It felt fine but I figure the speedometer went up to 110 so that's all I   
   could do.   When I got back to Chicago, my friend Rich Loft, who died of   
   leukemia a few years later when he was in his 20's, said "Did you hide   
   it?"   I didn't know about that, but I guess I should have gone beyond   
   the numbers and the needle might have gone behind the faceplate, or if   
   it couldn't do that, I still could have gone higher than the higest   
   number.   
      
   I had two r iders, it was just after dawn, no other traffic to hit, but   
   I could have had a blowout and I had no business driving so fast with   
   riders, esppecially when hey were sleeping and couldn't consent.   
      
   When I got back to Chicaog, the first thing I did was open my hood to   
   admire the engine, and.... there were bubbles coming out from under one   
   cylinder head.  Darn, I thouught, and I quickly shut the hood and didn't   
   open it again for a couple weeks.   By then the bubbling had stopped.   
      
   Later I got a compression tester and like they say, two adjacent   
   cylinders had low compression.  But the car ran fine.  And I think it   
   leaked at cranking speed, but when running at 20 to 85 mph, it also   
   leaked but not fast enough to make a difference in how it ran.   
      
   I remember now, that even after the bubbles, I drove from Chicago to   
   Allentown Pa. and back at 85mph much of the way.   
      
   The car was like a tank,    Undeneath the frame was a rectangle with an   
   X inside of it.   
      
   One time at work at a construction site, when it was time for lunch, I   
   thought I'd drive over a hill of loose dirt somone had made.  I gave it   
   a running start but I didn't get over the hill.  The car stopped and   
   when I got out, all 4 wheels were off the gound. so... it wouldn't   
   move.  I had to get the guy with the cherry picker to take the car off   
   the hill and put it bak on the ground.   But because of that great   
   frame, there was no damage. 1   
      
   >Corolla is perfectly fine.)  The car ultimately developed a lot of   
   >problems which I had workarounds for, but I ultimately sold it to a   
   >"fine Cherman VW mechanic" who was sure he could fix it.  A friend saw   
   >it at the local wrecking yard a few weeks later.   
      
   Mine still worked fine, but my brother had gone to Viet Nam and lent,   
   then gave me his '65 Catalina convertiable.  And as much as I like the   
   Olds, I like the Pontiac better.  So I gave or sold it for $50 to a guy   
   I'd met because he had a car like mine.  He had two, and after he had   
   mine, he had 3.  I hated to promote his nerdish hobby (details on   
   request), but it needed a home.   
      
   **He bought a Ford LTD? convertibld when he got back from Nam (in one   
   piece).   
      
   >My grandma never learned to drive, but she scrubbed the whitewalls until   
   >they looked brand new.  She also cleaned the chrome with steel wool.   
   >You guys remember chrome, right?  Back when bumpers didn't need to have   
   >their broken plastic covers replaced at $hundreds/each.   
      
   I wish I had a gramma like that.   I remember chrome bumpers.  You could   
   sit on them.   
      
   >> The new or nearly new features of the '50 were a high-compression (8.5   
   >> to 1, iirc) production v-8 engine, and an automatic transmission.   
   >   
   >I learned to drive stick on a friend's 1938 (maybe) Ford.  Looked like a   
   >Brit taxicab.  Later on I had my own 50 Chevy with an add-on floor stick   
   >shift, apparently installed and driven by a chimp.  That's the one whose   
   >freeze plugs I replaced.  Sold that one to a sailor on leave for the $50   
   >I paid for it.   
      
   I had read how to drive a stick and that was most of what I needed t o   
   know.  Then 4 of us were going on a trip and the owner of the 60n?   
   Corvair wanted to leave earlier than 3 of us so he took two of u s out   
   for an hour and taught us to drive a stick.  From Chicago to Pittsburgh   
   you only have to shift 4 or 5 cycles up and down, and I did the driving.   
      
   We went to Pittsburgh, NYC (where we watchd the '68 Deocratic Convention   
   on TV, then Boston to see Doug's girlfriend, then some small city in NYS   
   where my cousin was being married, the Rochestor and Niagara Falls, back   
   to Pittsburgh and Chicago.    There had been a bus and taxi strike in   
   Chicago and I'd volunteered to use my car to drive delegates from the   
   hotels to the Stockyardss and back, and I'm sorry I didn't get to do   
   that, but the trip seemed more important.   (The Republicans had the   
   loan of new cars, but the dems were depending on volunteers like me, but   
   more reliable than me.   
      
   >>>> Later on I drove a car with brake problems. I still pulse the brakes,   
   >>>> mainly to make sure they still work before I NEED to use them. Some   
   >>>> habits just don't die.   
   >>>   
   >>>I do the same thing, even in newer cars.  That's a good habit to have,   
   >>>either way.   
   >   
   >At the very least it's a warning in advance of need to the guy behind you.   
      
   True.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)